Sometimes I Swear
by ArdelliaBlade
Summary: A series of one-shots dedicated to characters who are mostly ignored in the last few books. A moment in each of the lives of Dudley, Ginny, George and Teddy.


As always, the neither the characters nor the world is mine. They belong to J.K. Rowling. 

The following short clips are all post DH and fall between the end of the book and the epilogue. There were a few characters that I wanted to see more of, so I gave them a bit of extra story time in my own head. 

* * *

"Sometimes I swear the only reason that my parents stayed together as long as they did was because they both hated Harry." The young man ran a large hand through his blonde hair. "I mean, I guess they cared for me, but it was really because of... well... you know..." He looked apologetically at the witch beside him. 

"They absolutely hated magic. Couldn't stand it when Harry got his letter." Dudley smiled at the memory. It had been traumatic at the time, with the pig tail and all. But looking back, that night on the shack on the rock, he had been exposed to a world entirely different from the one he had been raised in. 

His black leather coat shone in the firelight and he wondered, not for the first time, why he was here. He had come for Harry's birthday, but had somehow wound up telling a witch he did not know his life's story. Apparently she had gone to school with Harry. And been in a battle with him as well from what he could understand of what she said. 

He wondered if it was the same battle that that Voldemort character had died in. He hoped not. 

Lavender seemed far too nice to have been in a battle like that. Especially when he remembered that he had been safely tucked away when it happened.

She looked around and seemed to realize that everyone else had gone. 

"Well, I had better leave. Harry doesn't like me all that much." She had a rather sheepish expression and Dudley wondered if she had crashed the party.

"It was nice to meet you," Dudley mumbled, feeling almost like a teenager again. Although he had lost much of his weight, he was still conscious about his size. A lovely, intelligent witch like her could hardly be interested in hulking muggle like him. 

But the smile on her face gave him hope as she disappeared from the room with a popping noise. 

Harry stumbled into his cousin, who was grinning broadly at nothing.

"Are you alright, Duds?" Dudley murmured something that sounded strangely like "Lavender Brown." 

* * *

"Bloody hell!" 

Ginny's shout could be heard in every room of the Burrow and Molly Weasley wasted no time telling her daughter exactly what she thought about that. 

"Ginerva! I had expected that by now you would have at least learned some basic manners!" The Weasley matron's face was red and she looked faintly insane with a smear of flower across her forehead. 

Ginny wished she could swear again just to spite her mother. But no one talked back to her mother. 

For just one day, she wished her mother would treat her like an equal and not an errant child. Ginny wondered if her mother knew how to relate to her adult children. 

"Molly, give her a break. She's under just as much stress as you are." Ginny cheered up as her father entered the room. 

Mrs. Weasley seemed to deflate a bit, but her wand still remained in her hand. 

"Mum, honestly, I'm getting married in two days. Can't I curse if I want?" A piercing glare fixed on her and all of the rumoured red-haired rage of the world settled on her mother's shoulders.

"Go. To. Your. Room." With those four words, Ginny Weasley trudged up the stairs to send an owl to Harry, warning him yet again that he was marrying into a more than slightly mental family. 

* * *

As he looked down at the troll bogeys covering his Weasley Wizard Wheezes robes, he wondered where he had gone wrong. The product had seemed perfect. The idea to market toy versions of Harry's many Hogwarts adventures had proven to be more difficult than he thought though.

_Of course it's difficult you prat. I could have told you that the powder should have been added before you animated the figure. _

George Weasley cringed. It was one thing to be a prankster. It was quite another to play a prank on yourself. 

He had been doing it for years, imagining Fred's response to things. Sometimes he thought that his twin had become something like his conscience. But tonight was one of those nights that he felt more haunted than anything else. 

Watching the little troll figure smash a bowl beside it, he wondered why he even tried.

His family had been worried about him ever since Fred's death. They knew how close the twins were, and sometimes they noticed how he paused in the middle of sentences, waiting for Fred to finish them for him. 

Angelina found him there when she came to get him for their date. Instead of saying anything, she apparated both of them to the Burrow. George had been denying it for years, but he needed to take time off from the shop and come to terms with his twin's death. 

She decided as she watched the worry lines smooth out of his freckled face that she would talk to Ron about it the next day. 

* * *

A knock came at the door and Teddy Lupin set down the photograph and mirror he had been holding. 

"Teddy, you need to get some sleep," muttered Uncle Harry as he walked into the boy's room. 

"I promise I will, I just want to get this right for tomorrow." He took one more glance in the mirror and faint scars appeared on his face. He knew Uncle Harry would be uncomfortable about it, but he wanted to look like his father had on his first day at Hogwarts. He looked down once more at the picture of a smiling first year standing next to two black haired boys. Thankfully Wormtail had hidden behind the frame again. 

"Um... Teddy, I have something that I want you to have." He took a rather worn out piece of parchment from his back pocket and set it on the table. 

Teddy looked at it questioningly before his eyes, which he had made look exactly like his father's, lit up with anticipation. 

For his entire life he had heard stories about the Marauders and their Map, but he had always assumed that Uncle Harry had given the Map to Professor McGonagall to protect the school. 

"Go ahead, Teddy. Give it a try." Harry's green eyes coaxed him to do it, but Teddy paused. 

"Shouldn't Albus get this?" he asked, sounding incredulous. Harry grinned at him.

"You have just as much right to it. Anyway, you'll have plenty of time to use it before Albus is ever old enough for Hogwarts." 

A slow smile spread across the face that of a younger Remus Lupin and suddenly Harry Potter understood his father's old friend more than he had than when the werewolf was alive. Teddy was his father made in miniature, with his mother's powers, containing both of their best traits and all of their love of practical jokes.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

* * *

...Author's notes:

I really wish there had been more of these characters in the books. And for Teddy I wish that the trio could have spent a bit of time playing with him in the story. The last book was just one bad thing after another. It would have been nice to see such a giggly baby as Teddy must have been.

Review if you want, ignore me if you don't.


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